The Rise of the Black Plain

"Rebel me? Mn, it was not my initial intention, but when my territory starts to be successful, the problems will come to me, and I will have no choice. These Brown Kingdom's noble families would almost certainly try to depose me as the sovereign of the Black Plain, or the royal family would want a large portion of my region's revenue."

"And since I am not someone who accepts this type of situation, in which I do all the work, and then someone comes and tries to take it for himself, there is only the option of rebellion. It's inevitable." Minos said while having an indifferent expression on his face.

He had no problem saying this to these people. After all, Elen and her Nash family couldn't reject him. They could not invade the Black Plain, as this would cause a war in the region against them.

As for doing business with a rebel, well, the Nash family was a merchant power. They would do business regardless of their partners' problems, as long as they could win something.

Who didn't have their own business to do? Of course, the Nash family itself had theirs…

'His thinking is sensible.'

The three beautiful ladies thought at the same time. But, of course, as long as the Black Plain was a poor place with no options, no one would want to hold on to that hot potato.

However, once agriculture was made possible in these areas, the Black Plain would become even more critical than a medium-level spiritual density area like the Red Valley.  That's because the Black Plain, with its 200,000 square kilometers, had almost 18% of the Brown Kingdom's territory!

Even if cultures were cultivated with a low amount of spiritual energy, this would be enough to yield a few million low-grade spiritual crystals per year for those noble families.  Such a thing would be enough to nourish a colossal amount of subordinates and members of a family.

Minos then continued to expose his ideas to the young women around him. "But you shouldn't be worried about that in the short term, Ms. Elen. From what my subordinates told me, the last time that a nobleman from a large family passed through the Dry City was more than 20 years ago."

"The king must have only bothered to learn something about the region seven years ago, when my father died, and the region was passed down to me as his inheritance."

"As for the other smaller noble families, only one of them has contact with the Dry City, which is the Gill family. However, even they will not be able to know about the new reality of the Black Plain in the short term."

Minos was sure about this, as he had consistently surveyed the director of the Black Star Academy, Lionel Gill.

Minos discovered that, despite being the director of this spiritual academy, Mr. Lionel only came to the Dry City when someone with Black talent showed up. Such as the three youths who had previously appeared. Other than that, he stayed in other places almost all the time.

After the last meeting with Minos, Lionel and Ralf's family left the Dry City, and none of them had returned, even after more than a year.

As for the Black Star Academy's subordinates, who could pass on some information to the Gill family, Minos had brought them all to his side!

He disbursed many crystals to convince each of them not to pass on any information that could attract someone from the Gill family to the Black Plain region.

Not only that, the Gill family did not know, but the Black Star Academy no longer existed within the Black Plain!

That place was now the Preparatory Academy of the Dry City, which the Black Plain Army directly commanded.

Such a change had taken place more than a year ago. Not only that, each employee received a salary that was three times higher than before this change. Therefore, they were all pleased and had no intention of returning to the old reality.

Minos then continued. "In fact, no one cares what happens in the Dry City, they would even like the region to become independent, but no one has ever taken the initiative to do so."

At that moment, Ruth spoke for the first time since Minos, and the two beautiful young women had started to converse. She then asked with a confused expression on her face. "If that's the case, then why don't you declare the region's independence and avoid these problems? This would make your situation much easier."

Minos smiled at Ruth's naive question and answered. "Because it wouldn't be that easy. Suppose I decreed independence as soon as I got there in the Dry City, a place that I would practically not be able to increase my wealth or strength. What would they think of this action?"

Elen then responded nonchalantly. "They would ask what gave you the confidence to accept such a burden."

"That's right, after that, I would probably be watched for a long time by the spies of the great noble families of the Brown Kingdom. With that, they would quickly find out what I did, or I could do nothing until I was sure that I would not be watched."

"For the first option, I would be killed or lose everything in a few weeks after arriving in the Black Plain. As for the second, I would be considerably delayed in my plans."

"After I started, there would still be a war against me anyway. That would be inevitable. They would not accept that I keep everything to myself. They would simply say that the independence was irregular, or any excuse of that kind to invade us and take everything we produced." Minos spoke firmly while looking at Ruth.

'Speaking like that, there truly is no easy way out.' Ruth thought to herself as Minos' problems entertained her.

"Anyway, it should still be a few years before they find out. As long as I don't do business within the kingdom or in the Maritime City, we will not be threatened by this."

"And with a maximum of four years, my forces will be able to deal with this type of threat." He said with a cold sparkle in his eyes.

"It looks like you already thought of everything…" Elen replied after letting out a big breath. This ally of hers was indeed a person who was thinking ahead…

'This is good. At least the chances of him building an empire and falling overnight will be less.'

She did not worry that Minos would have such problems in the future since, in the Spiritual World, anyone who has anything of value would have to go through trials. But not everyone thought like Minos. Many of them neglected these problems or even trusted the idea that nothing would go wrong.

As a result, it was not uncommon to see someone quickly rise to success, creating brands or raising the status of their families, only to fall to an even lower level than they were at the start of it all if they were not killed...

That was the cruel reality of the Spiritual World.

'Did you inherit or get a high-level treasure? Did you deserve it because of your talent or your hard work? Congratulations on reaching such an achievement, but you are weak, give it to me!'

That was the brutal reality of this world.

"Well, leave that matter for the future. You said you want to sell your products at a lower price, right? How about we sell your products for ten low-grade crystals per kilo? That is just 20% of the price charged for items of such quality on Stone Island." Elen said, looking directly into Minos' eyes.

"Mnn, this price is good…" He agreed when he had thought of something.

"I want to know if you have your own place to sell these products yourself, or if you just pass it on to some organization on Stone Island?"

"I have my own store. Why the question?" Elen said curiously.

"I have an idea, but I don't know if it can cause any problems. Anyway, I want to know if your subordinates can advertise the Dry City to their weakest customers?"

"Say that the price of a kilo of these products in the Dry City is only four low-grade crystals." Minos said with a smile on his face.

Elen then smiled after hearing this. "Haha, so this is what you are thinking. You want to attract the weaker population of Stone Island to your region..."

"Well, I can do that. It shouldn't be a problem as it wouldn't affect the local community that much if some less talented people left Stone Island."

Minos was pleased when he heard that. Even if he did not pique the interest of many people, he might have enticed some less talented alchemists, blacksmiths, and array masters to the Dry City. Such as those that Minos had already contacted.

If these people knew that Minos could keep up with the commercial offer that he had made, that would be very tempting for many of them. And that was his main objective concerning this advertisement, to attract this type of cultivator!

As for possible migrations of ordinary people with White talent from Stone Island to the Black Plain, Minos had room for millions of them because his territory had nearly 20 million hectares available for planting!

Of course, he would not receive all these people from one place since that would be problematic. However, the Black Plain would have room for any of them.